Twelve Years Later
by Fantasy3
Summary: The year is 1911. When two of the old Manhattan newsboys walk home from work, the notice the Asch Building is on fire. This is a story of family and death. Based on the tradegy described in the book Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Aush


Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, they are and always will be the property of Disney no matter what. I obtained the information about the fire from the book "Ashes of Roses" by Mary Jane Auch, and the quotes are also from the paperback copy of this book (the page numbers are given).

* * *

**March 25, 1911**

_Racetrack_

I had won. I couldn't believe my luck. And here they had thought that darn horse was hurt.

"Anthony!"

I spun around, hearing the voice call my name. I grinned when I saw who it was- one of my best friends, Mark. The sun glinted off his glasses as he walked over to me.

"Great race," he said, referring to the last race of the day at Sheepshead which I had been a jockey in. "I thought you said your horse was hurt."

"The Sheepshead vets don't know a thing about my horse," I said as we began walking again.

"Yeah, sure, Race."

I turned to see his smirking face and hit him on the arm. "Why do ya always bring dat name up?" Not that I really minded. My old nickname was one I enjoyed. I smiled sweetly at him. "Ya know, I'm still looking for someone to clean out my horse's stall. Someone who could really see where the mess is... I think you'd be perfect for it, _Specs_."

"Shut it, Race."

I grinned and pulled my hat down farther over my eyes, stuffing my fists in my pockets.

"Extra, extra! Read all about it! Baby born wit two heads! Buy me pape, sir?"

I glanced over at the newsboy, an image of Snipeshooter flashing in my mind. Without thinking, I hit the kid's hat over his eyes. "Sure, kid, how much?'

"Two pennies."

I nodded and took two dimes out of my pocket, winking at Mark. "I've got two pennies right here."

Markgrinned. "Just pay the lid and get your stinkin' paper."

I nodded and handed the change to the boy. "I'm sorry, I don't have any more chance, or I'd give you some extra."

I watched as he swiped the money out of my hand and gave me a newspaper in a matter of seconds.

"It's all right, mister," he said, acting sad.

"Why don't you give me one, too, son."Mark held back another grin, handing a nickel to the boy in exchange for the paper. "Keep the change."

We continued walking and once the kid was out of earshot, Mark shook his head at me. "He'll go tell all his friends about the idiot who gave him two dimes instead of two pennies."

"It's the kind of thing he dreams of," I agreed. We both knew only too well the dreams of a newsboy. "Time flies, ya know that?"

I could feel Mark look over at me, but I kept my eyes diverted on the sidewalk in front of me. It wasn't like me to get nostalgic... but there I went.

I heard him sigh. "Feels like we were out sellin' papes yesterday."

I nodded. Odd as it may seem, I missed the days where I would strut around the streets like I owned them... which I basically had. I missed the freedom I had. But most of all, I missed my friends.

We turned the corner onto Washington Places, my eyes still on the ground, when I heard Mark say, "Holy shit! Anthony!"

I looked up at him, but he was pointing ahead. I turned to see why and stopped dead in my tracks. The Asch Building has just started on fire. I could see the small flames get bigger and start to spread. I stared for a full minutes before I ran for the building. "We need to help, Mark!"

I heard his feet pounding right behind me. "But how?"

We came up across the street from the building and sad a few girls run out the door. They came across the street, eager to get away, and Mark stopped them. "What happened?"

"A fire started on the eighth floor, right in front of us," one girl said, staring at the building. "All the girls on our floor got out.... but the boys, they stayed to fight. And the people on the ninth floor..." She trailed off, staring at the top floor. Her voice cracked when she spoke next. "I don't think many of them will get out alive."

Mark looked my way in horror, and I looked around wildly for something to help.

"Look at the windows!" one of the girls beside Mark shouted. I spun around and saw people standing on the window sills, looking like they were about to jump.

"A blanket! Mark, look fora blanket!" I shouted.

"Why?" I heard him ask.

"We can catch them if they jump! The stairs must be blocked or something..." I saw a carriage a few feet away and I ran to it. "Do you have something to catch them in? A blanket?"

The older woman pulled the blanket covering heself off and handed it to me. "Thank you!" I cried from behind my back; I was already running towards the building. Mark came up beside me.

"I got a blanket, too."

"Put it underneath this one. More cushioning."

Mark nodded and we spread the blankets out, holding them as high above the sidewalk as we could. "Jump!" I shouted up at them. "We'll catch you!"

I heard someone shouting from behind me and realized they'd had the same idea of catching the girls. However, I didn't take my eyes off the windows. I saw a girl directly above us jump out. "Hold on tight, Mark. Don't let go of the blanket." I don't really think I had needed to remind him; if he was as worried as I was, he would have the same tight, death-like grip on it as I did.

I think it was when the girl was halfway down when I realized how fast she was going. I had the worst feeling that this blanket wasn't going to do a thing to stop her.

"Race!"

I heard the toneof Mark's voice and kknew he was thinking the same thing. "Don't move, Specs!"

"But Race!"

I lowered my head, meeting his gaze. A second later, something flashed in front of me, blotting his face out. I felt a gigantic pressure on the blanket but then it was a gone and there was a bang. It was like nothing I've ever heard before.

"Someone else jumped!" Specs shouted, and I looked up. Another girl was streaking towards us. We didn't have time to move so we stood there and watched her flash before us, another "wham" resounding in our ears. I couldn't help but see the two girls, one right beside the other. They could have been resting if the one's neck wasn't twisted, and the other's lefs weren't bent at the knees, lying under her ody. And if their eyes weren't open. I'll never forget that- one had blue eyes, seeming to reflect the ironically blue sky of spring. The other had green eyes, almost read with the flames dancing in them. They were staring straight upm looks of terror permanentlyetched on their faces.

So they had known that we couldn't catch them, too.

I took all of this in in mere seconds before hearing the same sickening noise of flesh hitting concrete behind me. It took me out of my daze and I grabbed Spec's hand and pulled him away from the building. We went across the street and stood on the green grass of Washington Square. Green... green, like the color of her eyes...

I felt my stomach churning and bent over, letting all the food I had eatn fall to the grass in chunks. When I was finished, I turned and walked to the curn before falling to the ground. Specs sat beside me, taking deep, shaky breaths. Though I didn't look at him, I knew he was watching the building, too. The fire was like a magnet, keeping everyone's eyes stuck on the horrible site. People were still jumping from the windows. Or falling. Whichever it was, no one would ever know.

I quietly stared at the firemen spreading out a parachute for the girls to fall into, noticing a girl falling for it and hitting it. It didn't rip, and for a second, I was hopeful. But the next second the girl had bounced out, and that damn magnetic force wouldn't allow me to look away as she crumpled on the ground beside it.

"I'm gonna be sick," Specs mumbled.

Then someone was calling my name. David Jacobs stepped in front of me, a pad of notebook paper and a pencil in hand. He must have been sent by the New York Sun (the newspaper he was now a journalist for) to find out about the fire. But if there was one thing I knew about Davey, it was that when he was sent on a job, it was no-nonsense, no emotion, just get the story. Boy, did he look anything but at the moment.

"Davey," I said, standing up. Specs was already beside him, clapping his shoulder.

"What's wrong?" Specs asked him. I thought it was the stupidest question I'd heard in a long time.

"It's Les. He worked here, and I can't find him..."

My eyes widened. Les had... had worked _here_? "What floor?" I asked.

"The eighth," David turned and stared as though willing the fire to go out.

That sounded familiar. What was it about the eighth floor?

"The fire started on the eighth floor," Specs said quietly.

The girl's voice came back to me: "But the boys, the stayed to fight." she had said. So that meant Les...

"How do you know that? Do you think he got out?" David asked. He was frantically looking around to find Les, but couldn't find him.

"A girl told us what happened," I sighed. I didn't want to tell my friend, but I couldn't give him false hope. "She was on the eighth floor, and she said all the boys had stayed to try and put the fire out."

"He stayed in there?" David ran for the building, but we each grabbed an arm, and for some reason, that calmed him down. "How will I find out if he's..."

He sounded more like himself, thank goodness. But I didn't have an answer for him. The three of us stood there in silence, staring at the burning building. There was nothing we could do to help.

We could only stand there and watch them die.

* * *

"Spotlight followed the bodies as the twisted and turned at the end of the cable. at each floor, a fireman leaned out of the window to keep the body from hittin' the building. Such care was bein' taken now that it was too late. Why hadn't anyone cared enough to make sure this couldn't happen in the first place?" (pg. 220)

* * *

_Racetrack_

We were next. I really didn't want to go in, but I had to.

We hadn't found Les. david wouldn't let us give up until we heard from a policeman about the morgue they were taking all the bodies to. We had come right away and stoof in line, and now we were next. The policeman nodded to us and opened the door for us to step inside.

All I noticed about the room was how long it was. It seemed to stretch on forever, and the caskets went all the way down. They were lined up on both sides- two neat rows of pine boxes with bodies inside.

And I noticed that all along the hall, from what I could see, were girls. That gave me hope. Slowly, we started down, David glancing quickly at both sides. I hardly looked at them, afraid of finding Les lying in one. As long as all I saw were girls, I was fine.

I looked to the right and saw a girl with a twisted neck, staring at me. _Reflecting the sky... _Swallowing hard, I looked away. I didn't have to see- I knew the girl beside her had green eyes, broken legs.

I had killed them.

I walked quickly ahead, getting away from Specs before he realized who the girls were. I heard him muttering something, and I turned to my left, not wanting to listen, trying to shake the image off. I stopped dead; it was a boy. But it wasn't Les who came to mind. Instead, breif flashes of memories did; stolen cigars, my tag-a-long, lost games of marbles...

There was no question- it was Snipeshooter. I gripped the end of the coffin. How the hell had this happened? Snipeshooter couldn't have worked for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

"Les told me he had started working there this winter," David said quietly.

"You can identify him?" a policeman asked.

"His name is Luke Thomas," Specs answered.

"Do you know where he lived?" he asked, writing the name down. "We need to notify his family."

Before anyone else could answer, I opened my mouth, "He has no parents or siblings," I told him. "We're his family."

And then I blacked out.

* * *

"As long as we live, we'll never have another day as terrible as the twenty-fifth of March 1911." (pg. 233)

* * *

**April 1, 1911**

_Specs_

I stood outside the building, staring off into space. Dutchy was standing beside me, and Racetrack was leaning on the wall.

In the past week, since the fire, I'd talked to more of the old newsies, my best friends, than I had since I _was_ a newsies. It's been eleven years since I've talked to a lot of them.

Everybody had heard about the fire, and Race and I got in touch with those of the newsboys still in New York City to tell them about the deaths of Luke "Snipeshooter" Thomas and Les Jacobs.

Personally, we talked to Jack and Sarah (they were the first to find out), Mush, Pie Eater, Boots, Dutchy, and Spot.

But somehow, all of the newsboyscame. I don't know how some of them found out they'd been killed, but every last one of them had turned up for Les and Snipeshooter's wake the day before.

And you would think that after all those years, we'd stop using the nicknames we had given each other. And we had had, but now it was different. I realized I had gone back to calling Anthony "Race" when we were watching the building. I don't know how it happened, but it did.

This was so hard. After the strike, we had all become close. Fighting that long, like that, it made us get close. Afterwards, we always welcomed the new newsies, but I don't think any of us can honestly tell you a thing about them. Like Racetrack had said, we were family. Losing one of those people- even a young one, for they were the ones that we'd taken care of- was hard. Losing two, at the same time, was close to being unbearable.

I heard a door open and close. "They're about to close the caskets."

It was Mush. I nodded at him and started for the door. Race put his cigarette out and pushed off the wall to follow us.

"Have you seen Mr. or Mrs. Jacobs lately?" Dutchy quietly asked me.

I shook my head. "Not since yesterday."

"They've got to be hurt by this," Dutchy said sadly.

"I know. But they're strong. And they've got Davey and Sarah," I smiled just a little. "And their first grandkid."

"I heard Sarah and Jack are goin' ta name it Les if it's a boy," Dutchy told me.

"That'd be real nice," I heard myself say.

Then we were in the room, right by the caskets. I'm surprised they were open at all- both of their faces were partly burnt. The burns everywhere else were covered up with their black suits. It's funny, how they had nice new suits when they didn't need them.

Normally, dead bodies scare me. But today I couldn't look away. I didn't want their caskets to close. Once they did, I'd never see them again. It'd finalize the fact that they're gone for good.

I stuffed my fists in my pockets as I stood with Race, Mush, and Dutchy, and held back my tears. Whatever happened, I did not want to cry. Because of that, I made sure to keep my eyes away from the Jacobs or my friends as the lid was pulled closed.

I thought the ride to the cemetary wouldn't be bad.We had the two coffins in a carriage together, the rest of us riding behind. The Jacobs' had asked the drivers to take the procession past their home as was the custom. I stared as we passed their old apartment building, remembering the times I had climbed the fire escape to get inside. We turned on Duane Street, and that surprised me a lot.

"We're goin' past the Lodgin' House?" I asked of Skittery.

"We must be. It was Snipe's home," he answered.

I nodded and waited to see the building come into view. Everything about it was the same. Again, I had to hold back tears. This wasn't like me. I never cried. I turned away from the building and stared ahead. I felt a hand touch my shoulder and met Skittery's gaze to see tears forming in his eyes, too.

It seemed to take forever to get to the cemetary after that, but when we did, everything began going too fast. The caskets were carried and placed next to their already-dug graves and everyone gathered around. The jacobs' hadn't asked anyone to come and talk over the bodies- there wasn't a sound. I think all of us were remembering.

Then I heard someone quietly begin to sing and looked in that direction to find Medda. She had grown older and quit her job, and I hadn't seen her in years. Well, untl yesterday. But I had to give it to her. She still had her voice.

"High times, hard times," she sang softly. I remembered the song so well, but this was nothing like the rowdy, meaningless version from our rally. "Sometimes the livin' is sweet."

"And sometimes there's nothin' to eat," Race joined in.

"But I always land on my feet." Jack sang with them.

"So when there's dry times," the three sang, and then paused.

If this had been happening somewhere else, at any other time, someone else's burial, I would have found it corny. But Jack had begun to cry, half the people surrounding me were crying. And I felt the tingle in my own eyes, but I didn't even try to stop it. It may be corny, but it was different.Two of _my_ friends had died, it was happening to _me_.The song was right, a memory of an important time in both their lives. I exchanged looks, and for the rest of the song, everyone sang, softly, quietly, sometimes breaking off as they cried.

And I was right along with them. After all, I realized it's all right to cry in front of my family.

"I wait for high times and then I put on my best and I stick out my chest and I'm off to the races again."

* * *

Let me know what you think. Give me the truth. The honest-to-goodness truth. And I'll love you forever, even if it's a flame. Heh. 


End file.
